


Set Me Free

by fayrose



Category: Black Sails
Genre: F/F, discussions of past rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-13
Updated: 2014-02-15
Packaged: 2018-01-12 06:39:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1183067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fayrose/pseuds/fayrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set after episode III. Max finds an unlikely champion in Anne Bonny and Eleanor's world continues to fall apart around her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

She didn’t sleep that night. How could she? Every shadow, every noise could be them come back, and this time no one would stop them. Not now she had spurned Eleanor and aligned herself with thieves and murderers. She almost wished that when Eleanor had promised to protect her, that she had taken her hand. Almost, but not quite. After what Eleanor had done, she never wanted to see her again. No matter how much her heart tried to convince her otherwise. No matter how clearly the sound of Eleanor’s voice echoed in her mind. So clear. Too clear.

“Please, Anne. You owe me this.” The tone of Eleanor’s voice – pathetic and weak sounding, like she had been crying – turned Max’s stomach. Once that voice had filled her with love, with desire. Eleanor had used it to charm her with sweet words. She had wielded it to whisper filthy things into Max’s ear whilst Eleanor’s fingers had made her see stars. The memory made Max heave, but there was nothing left for her to bring up. How could someone she had loved so much betray her so completely?

“I don’t owe you nothin’,” Anne grunted, ever a woman of fine words.

For a moment there was no answer. Max shivered in the silence, waiting for Eleanor’s reply with a held breath and hating herself for it. She had once hung on Eleanor’s every word. If Eleanor had asked her to run away with her, she would have done. If she had asked her to stay, Max would have made it work. If Eleanor had asked her to marry her, she might even have done that too.

“What will he do to her?” Eleanor asked – a mouse with iron behind her words. She sounded more afraid than Max thought she had any right to be. It hadn’t been her that they had… But that thought was too terrible to contemplate and Max found her stomach heaving again.

“Fuck if I know.”

“Anne… Please,” Eleanor begged, her tone so soft that Max had only heard it when they were alone. “I need to know there is someone there for her. If she will not confide in me... You must remember what it-”

When Anne spoke, her voice was a growl and Max had never heard her say so much at once. “Of course I remember. Every _fucking_ night I remember. Did you think that you could wash it all away when you wiped away the fucking blood?”

What Eleanor said next was silent, a gesture or a look. Whatever it was, it made Anne grunt again and there was the clink of glass on glass and the slosh of liquid in a bottle.

“I’ll give ‘em her, but I can’t promise she’ll use ‘em.” Anne’s voice was purposefully harsh and Max wondered what she was trying to conceal.

“But you can promise that you’ll try?” Eleanor was trying to hide her tears, but Max could hear them in her voice, even if she couldn’t see them. She had heard that tone before. Seen those eyes wet with tears, good and bad. “And will you tell her… Tell her that she was right. It is just sand. Without her, it’s just sand.”

“She heard you clear enough.”

Eleanor gasped and for a moment Max thought that she would come bursting into the tent, demanding to be heard, to be forgiven, but there was only a scoff of sand and it was Anne who came through the tent flap.

“You should tell her to go fuck herself,” Anne said, not even looking at Max as she tossed two bottles of ointment in her direction. “Fancied tellin’ her to me’self.”

“Why did you not?” Max asked as she struggled to catch the bottles. Fire burst along her back and between her thighs when she stretched and, for a moment, Anne looked sorry that she had caused her pain.

The pirate shrugged. “The ointment’s good.”

Max looked at the bottles in her hand. The effort of holding them hurt, but it felt good to have something heavy in her hands. They were still warm from Eleanor’s skin and Max held them to her chest despite herself.

Anne was right. The ointment was good, she had used it before. Noonan’s wife had rubbed it on the mess a pirate had made of her, long before she and Eleanor had even said as much as a word of to one another. Months later, it has been Eleanor’s hands that had been slickened with the oil and the cuts had been ones that she had given Max herself – not in anger, but in pleasure. When she realised she had drawn blood, Eleanor had been ashamed. She had mumbled apologies over and over, and her hands had been shaking when she massaged the ointment into Max’s back. Max had only laughed at her and gave her a set of her own scratches to show her how good it felt, the dull pain a reminder of the pleasure. Now it was just another memory of Eleanor that made Max’s stomach turn.

“They found out I was a woman three days from Nassau. If I’d have fought, they’d have slit my throat,” Anne said, taking out her knife and running her finger along the edge of it. A bead of blood welled up on the tip of her finger and she brought it up to her mouth to swallow it. “So I lay still and took it. When we got to land I waited till they was drunk on Miss Guthrie’s finest drink and slit _their_ throats instead.”

Max swallowed. “And Eleanor? What does she ‘ave to do with this?”

Anne laughed. “She cleaned me up after. Got Vane to get rid of the bodies. When he saw the mess I’d made, he gave me a spot on his crew. I’d recommend it, killing ‘em. Was good for the soul.”

Max shrunk back, hugging the bottle to her like they could protect her where Eleanor had failed. “I could no sooner slit a man’s throat that sail a ship, not matter what ‘e ‘ad done to me. I am no pirate.”

“ _She_ is.”

Max’s jaw clenched and something like pride made her contend Anne’s claim. “No. She is not.”

“She fucked you over for gold,” Anne said, shrugging. “She’s as much of a pirate as Blackbeard himself.”

Max clicked her tongue and looked away. “You do not know ‘er.”

When Anne smiled, she looked as dangerous as the devil himself. “No, but now I know that you still care what people think of her. And now you’re angry, the fear don’t consume you quite so bad, does it?”

Max only felt angrier that she had been played.

 

\---

It was two days later when Eleanor came back. She had stood outside the tent and fidgeted until Anne finally given in and gone out to see her. It was Anne’s tent she had been staying in and that Eleanor seemed to know that annoyed Max. How many spies did this woman have?

“How is she?” Eleanor asked, her voice sounding just as rough as it had to days before.

“Not too broken on the outside that Noonan won’t have her back.”

Max almost smiled at Anne’s response. It was meant to shock and Eleanor always rose to the bait. Especially from a pirate.

“If he so much as looked at her wrong it would be the last thing he did,” Eleanor bit, her tone darker than Max had ever heard it.

“Told her she should have gutted them. She won’t.” Max could almost hear the smile in Anne’s voice. “Pitty. I’d have liked to have seen that.”

“It is true what they say,” Eleanor said flatly. “Men really do squeal like pigs.”

Max’s heart stopped. Eleanor had a temper, but surely she would never…

“Don’t look at me like that. I only had them lashed.” She paused, responding no doubt to one of Anne’s treacherous looks. “I won’t put their deaths on her conscience, not for my own gratification. And it would have been gratifying. They deserve to die for what they did.”

“And if she asked you to take a knife to their bellies? Would you have done it then?” Anne asked, all teasing and eager.

“Without hesitation,” Eleanor vowed. “Whatever it took.”

Anne snorted. “You’re a fucking fool, Guthrie. A fucking fool.”

When Max closed her eyes, she could picture the indignant look that would no doubt be gracing Eleanor’s sometimes angelic face.

“Better that than a fucking pirate.”

And though Max hated her still, she could not help but smile.

 

\---

 

“Why are you helping me?” Max asked as she mended a hole in one of Anne’s shirts. She and Jack had argued about something and Anne had come back fuming with a rip in her shirt and cut on her hand.

“What you did was fucking stupid, but it took guts. Guthrie isn’t the only pirate around here.”

For once, Max took the title to be a compliment. Anne was many things, but weak and vulnerable were not among them. Max could learn a thing or two from the flame haired pirate with a fearsome reputation. Things that might keep her alive.

 

 

\---

“It has been a little over a week since your father’s failed arrest,” Mr Scott said, dropping the empty onion bottle on Eleanor’s desk for emphasis. “Two more like this one and we will be finished.”

“You said we had four,” Eleanor said distractedly, eyes distant as she gazed out the window to the flicking lights of the tents on the beach. Max was somewhere in there. In Anne Bonny’s tent. Being made to do God knows what.

“That was before half the crews decided it was too dangerous to go back out into the water,” Scott explained. “The Navy are prowling like lions out there.”

“When Flint takes the Urca-”

Scott exhaled in annoyance. Talking to Eleanor these days was like talking to a parrot. She said the same thing over and over, but didn’t take in a word you said. “Nassau will starve long before he could come back with provisions and no legitimate merchant will came within two hundred leagues of us. You need to talk to your father.”

Eleanor broke her vigil over the tents and she looked at him, her blue eyes gone pink with heartbreak. “You didn’t see the way he looked at me. He won’t help us.”

“He will not see his daughter starve,” Scott reasoned. “He may not be the father you deserved, but he is still your father.”

“You’re wrong,” Eleanor said sadly, shaking her head in dismay. “I’m no daughter of his. He’s said nothing that hasn’t been about the business to me since my mother…” She trailed off, unable to say it even now. “Now he won’t even do me that honour.” She bit her lip and looked down at her hands. “Someone told him about Max and me. He knew everything. Even that I had been paying Noonan to keep her for myself. Or at least that’s how he put it.”

Scott groaned. “What did he say?”

Eleanor’s eyes darted back to the beach. “That if I wanted to play at being a man I could fix things myself. But I can’t, can I? I can’t save Nassau and I couldn’t save her.”

“You need to choose who you want to be in this life,” Scott said. “Do you want to be your father and think only of profit, or do you want something more?”

Eleanor snorted. “Even my father managed not to fuck things up for long enough to marry my mother and sire me. Much to his displeasure.” She had to bite her lip to stop it shaking, but nothing could hold back the tears. “She was right. I did do that to her. I put profit before love and she paid for it with…” Her words choked off and bile rose in her throat. She barely eaten a thing since that night and still she couldn’t stop the heaving. More than once she had felt her panic rise and had not been able to quell it.

“Do you love her?” Scott asked.

“Of course I love her!” Eleanor screamed and for a moment the noise of the tavern outside the study door paused. “She is everything, _everything_ , and I was too stupid to see it! It’s just sand! Empty, meaningless sand!”

She was on her feet now and panting, her hands clenching and unclenching wildly at her sides. She couldn’t breathe and her skin felt so unclean that it was all she could do not to try to rip it off.

“Eleanor!” Scott shouted. “Eleanor!”

He grabbed her arms and pinned them to her sides. “You have to stop this! You cannot go on working yourself up until you lose all control. You are stronger than this, Eleanor, and I will not let this consume you.”

“I have nothing without her – _nothing_!” Eleanor cried. “What’s the point if she’s gone? What’s the point in any of it?! I may as well curl up and die for all the good that my life is without her in it. I can’t do this, Scott. I can’t.”

“And a lot of good that will do for her,” Scott snorted angrily. “If you do not fix this mess that you and your father have gotten us into, then the last five years will have been for nothing! Everything we have done will disappear and there will not be a soul on this island that they won’t pay for our crimes. You, Eleanor. Max too. Everyone will either starve or be hanged.” He held her shoulders tight, shaking her to make it sink in. “Unless you do something about it!”

Eleanor stood, trembling and shocked. He was right and she had known it too, but that didn’t change a thing. She could think of nothing but Max. Not even with the Navy waiting to pounce.

 

\---

 

When Anne came back from the tavern that night, she told Max about Eleanor’s outburst and delivered an invitation. Eleanor had promised to leave the tavern that next night so that Max could collect some of her things. There would be a bath set up as well, with water laced with ointment to keep her wounds from turning sour. At first Max had refused, but Anne had muttered something about Max cutting off her nose to spite her face, then something about wanting some privacy with Jack, unless Max wanted to watch them fuck. Even the sounds of the pirates with their whores in the tents around them made Max’s stomach sicken. The thought of actually seeing someone…

Next to that, the prospect of running into Eleanor was almost appealing.

 

\---

 

Loyal to her word, Eleanor was gone from the tavern when Max arrived. She made her way through the crowded tables with her head held high and climbed the creaking staircase to the room she had once dared to call home. The door opened to show the room exactly as it had been when last she had left it, when her body had still purred with the satisfaction of love. The bed sheets were still rumpled and her shawl still hung on the bedpost. If Eleanor had been in their room since Max had left, she had not moved a thing, only filled up their bath.

Slowly, Max moved into the room and shut the door behind her. Closed in the room, Eleanor’s scent surrounded her. She closed her eyes and breathed in the metallic tang of ink and the salt of the sea that floated atop a note that was wholly Eleanor’s, letting it sink down inside where her heart quickened and her stomach fluttered. Memories flooded her body, echoes of Eleanor’s touch ghosting over her skin like the warm Bahamian breeze through the open window.

“This is no good for you,” she told herself aloud, releasing her held breath and padding towards the steaming bath. “Bathe and leave, nothing mo-”

Her words extinguished at the sight of a wax sealed envelope floating on the bath surface on a length of driftwood. She reached down and plucked it up, breaking the Guthrie seal with a practiced ease and drawing out the letter. A gold chain and pendant slipped from the empty envelope and into the water, sinking to the bottom and glittering there in the candle light. Shaking her head at the audacity of Eleanor’s attempt to win her forgiveness, she dipped her hand into the clear water and brought up the chain.

On closer inspection she saw that not one but three pendants hung from the chain. The first was a beautiful barn swallow, like the ones from her childhood home that she had told Eleanor of one lazy morning in bed. The second was round, like a coin, and held the words “ _Tu m'a Libéré”_ embossed on its surface. The third and final pendant was a horse, a reminder of the time they had ridden, Max holding on tight to Eleanor’s waist, to the centre of the island, where they had indulged amongst the trees. It was beautiful. Proof that Eleanor listened when she spoke and remembered. Proof that the moments she cherished were the moments Eleanor cherished in return. All of that paled in comparison to those three simple words. Not “I love you”, but “you set me free”. That Eleanor thought that about Max made her heart swelled with longing.

“Oh Eleanor,” she breathed, rubbing her fingers over the raised letters. “Why do you do this to me?”

Slipping the chain onto her wrist to keep it from falling again, she opened the folded parchment and began to read. She had half expected it to be in French. She had barely been able to read a word of English when she first came to Nassau, but Eleanor had proved a good teacher and so the letter was in English instead. As ill eloquent as Eleanor was in English, she was worse in French.

_My Dearest Max,_

_I commissioned this a month past, but have only just received it. It was supposed to say with a gesture what I have failed to say with words. I love you, Max. You set me free. I don’t expect that you feel the same, not anymore, but I want you to have the necklace anyway. You are free to do with it as you wish. I hope that you’ll keep it and remember when you look at it that I love you and that I always will. Even if you can never love me back._

_I am sorry for everything that I have done and everything that I failed to do. I know that sorry can never be enough, but it’s all I have to give. That, and my love._

_I will never stop loving you, but I won’t chase you either. Not unless you ask me too._

_All my love,_

_Your Eleanor_

A tear fell to the paper and smudged the long graceful loops of Eleanor’s signature. Max crumpled the letter in her hand and threw it in the water, watching the ink swirl up and dissipate. When the words were gone, she fished out the pulpy paper and threw it aside with the driftwood. Then, she shed her clothes, fastened the chain around her neck and climbed into the bath.

The water was warm and soothing, as if Eleanor’s words were surrounding her, sinking into her skin and making her believe them, if only as long as the ink-tainted water lapped around her. For the first time in more than a week, she lay back and let the tension fall out of her muscles. The warmth of the water calmed her and she let her mind wander to the times she and Eleanor had shared the bath. Her favourite memory was the most innocent. Max had been ill for a week and through she was starting to recover, every muscle ached. Eleanor had spent a fortune in firewood heating the water for the bath, then had blown off Flint himself to lounge with Max in the warm water. Max remembered the feel of Eleanor behind her. She was soft and warm, despite the cold, hard mien she showed to the world. She had wrapped her arms around Max’s body and pressed kisses up her neck and along her jaw, promising Max the world.

Max stayed in the water, reliving her life with Eleanor until it was cold. When she finally stepped out, she reached for the robe she had left on Eleanor’s bedpost and wrapped it around her cooling skin. With a lazy, relaxed gait, she padded over to the bed and lay down upon it, promising herself that it would only be for a moment, that she only wanted to lay her head on Eleanor’s pillow and remember. But sleep came faster than memories, and with it came dreams of azure eyes and wispy blonde hair.

 

\---

 

The sea was calm, unlike Eleanor’s nerves. She sat on the back steps of the tavern and poked listlessly at the sand, a battered book discarded at her side. True to her promise, she would not enter the tavern whilst Max was inside. She wanted Max to be able to gather her things and wash away the dirt of the beach with no pressure or expectations, and this was the best way she knew to do that. To keep away entirely. Mr Scott had called it cowardly, but he had called everything else she had done in the last week cowardly as well, so she had no special reason to heed him. He did not know about the necklace. Eleanor hoped that it had not been a mistake.

Footsteps behind her made her look around. Mr Scott greeted her with a shake of his head.

“She is still here.”

Eleanor looked back to the hole she had dug in the sand with her stick. “She can have as long as she needs.”

“It is past midnight. The moon is already moving back towards the horizon,” Scott told her, as if she couldn’t read the time in the moon for herself.

“She can have as long as she needs,” Eleanor repeated. “I will not break another promise. Even if I have to stay out here all night.”

Sighing, Mr Scott shook his head again and walked back into Eleanor’s study and on into the tavern.

“As long as she needs,” Eleanor whispered, looking out to sea. “Even if it’s forever.”

 

 

\---

 

When Max awoke, the sun was already beginning to rise. She had curled up on Eleanor’s bed and fallen asleep there. Embarrassment robbed her of the contentedness that being in Eleanor’s room had given her, and the urge to leave became overwhelming. Gathering her things, she crept form the room and down the stairs into the empty tavern. She had not intended to stay so long, so she made for the back exit, through Eleanor’s study, in the hope that she would not be seen. That was when she saw Eleanor, asleep on the wooden steps, her head resting against the post and the feathery strands of hair at her temples stirring in the breeze.

A familiar warmth stirred in Max’s chest and she could not tear her eyes away. Nor could she leave Eleanor asleep on the steps for anyone to find.

“Eleanor,” she whispered, her hand coming to rest on Eleanor’s arm.

Eleanor woke with a start, her hand flying up in fright to cover the hand on her arm. Max flinched but did not pull away.

“I…” Eleanor blinked blearily. “Where am I?”

“On the steps to your study,” Max explained, trying so very hard to stop the puppyish nature of Eleanor’s sleepiness from melting her heart. She had not seen those eyes of Eleanor’s for over a week, and they seemed bluer from the absence. “You cannot sleep ‘ere. It is not safe. You should ‘ave come inside.”

Eleanor’s eyes closed in a slow blink. “Couldn’t. Promised.”

Max’s smile was gone before she opened her eyes, and her gaze fell instead on the pendants around Max’s neck. “You’re wearing them.”

Max nodded. “For now.”

Eleanor’s momentary hopefulness died and her a crestfallen expression threatened again to sway Max into taking her back.

“I understand why you’re doing this, but I want you to know that I meant it, what I said in the letter,” Eleanor swore, taking Max’s hand from her arm and holding it in her hands. She ran her finger over the palm, making Max’s fingers twitch. Looking up into Max’s eyes, she promised, “I love you.”

It was the first time she had said it and Max’s heart skipped.

“And I will never, ever stop loving you. But I won’t push you to love me back.”

 “You do not need to push me,” Max conceded. “I ‘ave never stopped loving you. But that does not mean-”

“I know,” Eleanor sighed, lifting Max’s hand up and pausing to allow Max to pull away. When Max didn’t move, Eleanor bowed her head and rested her forehead against Max’s wrist, breathing her in. “I was a fool. I _am_ a fool. I’d give anything to go back and change it.”

Sighing, Max threaded her fingers into the soft mess of Eleanor’s hair. This was what she needed. Eleanor was what she needed. But she couldn’t give in.

“It’s too late, _ma Chérie_ ,” Max breathed. “What is done is done.”

Her head still bowed, Eleanor pressed a kiss to Max’s palm. It was a small gesture, one of resignation and defeat. But for Max, it changed everything. The fluttering in her belly grew and she knew that no matter how hard she tried to let Eleanor go, she never could. That didn’t mean that she could forgive her either, but she had to try. If she could ever be happy again, it would be with Eleanor.

“Chase me.”

Eleanor’s head snapped up. “What?”

Pulling her hand from Eleanor’s grasp, Max took a step back.

“You said in your letter that you wouldn’t chase me unless I asked you too. Max is asking. She is giving you her permission. Chase me, woo me, please?”

And with that Max was gone, running into the night and leaving Eleanor bewildered on the steps.


	2. Chapter 2

When Max re-entered Anne’s tent, it was with a spring in her step and a cautious smile turning up the corners of her lips. She stopped short when she saw Anne sat in only her mended shirt and hat, a quieting finger held up to her lips.

“Wore ‘im out, bless ‘im,” Anne said, jerking her head back to where Jack lay dishevelled and passed out in the corner. She smiled wickedly and rolled her eyes. “No stamina that man.”

“’e _is_ a little on the scrawny side,” Max appraised, “but Max is thinking this is ‘ow you like ‘em, yes?”

Anne snorted. “Easier to chuck about that way.”

Curious, Max perched on the crate that served as table, dresser and chair in the sparse tent. “But never a woman?”

Anne’s smile twitched. “You offering?”

Max laughed, sliding her tongue into her cheek and raising her brows. She had more than enough trouble with Eleanor Guthrie without throwing Anne Bonny into the mix as well. And more than that, whilst her heart was coming around to the idea of letting Eleanor back in, the thought of being that vulnerable with anyone else was out of the question. A shiver ran through her at the thought of Eleanor touching her, but someone else… Her stomach couldn’t take it.

“She bloody well better not be,” Jack muttered, sounding both dark and comedic at the same time as he rolled onto his back and blocked out the light to his eyes with his hat. “Would you ladies mind being a little less loud? Some of us are trying to catch a blessed forty winks here.”

Tilting her head back to him, Anne said almost affectionately, “Shut up or fuck off. We’re trying to talk ‘ere.”

“Charming. You never want to talk to me.”

“You never say nothin’ worth listenin’ to.”

“You do not know what you are missing,” Max said with a wistful smile, thinking on the finer points of Eleanor’s body and soul. “Women are…” she gestured searchingly with her hands, “ _magnifique_.”

Jack grunted. “You have met the lovely Anne?”

“ _Exactement_ ,”Max said. “’ave you ever met another woman like Anne?”

Begrudgingly joining the conversation, Jack struggled to sit up, resting his elbows on his knees and regarding Max with some measure of curiosity. “My dear, there are no other women like Anne. If there were, we would all be dead.” His eyes fell to Max’s neck. “Unless that necklace of yours was amongst your possessions, which I very much doubt given the colour on that gold and the trash you used to wear, I would say that you ran into the illustrious Mistress Guthrie at the tavern. Am I wrong?”

“ _Non_ ,”

Jack shrugged, impressed. “Well I can’t fault her taste. She must have paid more for that than Flint brought in in his last four prizes combined. Sell that and you could be on your way to a fairy-tale new life within the hour.”

Max eyes widened and she wondered whether Jack was telling the truth. If he was, then Eleanor’s gesture had been even grander than she had thought.

“It is not for sale,” Max asserted, closing her hand around the pendants and giving Jack a hard look. “And if I find it gone, I will know who has taken it. As will Eleanor.”

“He’s not going to take it,” Anne said, her gaze on Jack. “Are you?”

He held up his hands in surrender. “Wouldn’t dream of it. Not now you’re Anne’s new best friend.”

“Got a problem with that?” Anne asked.

Jack frowned. “You don’t have _friends_. It’s one of the many things that first endeared you to me.” He looked up at Max, torn between annoyance and interest at this new development in Nassau’s ever changing world. “I hope you know what you’ve gotten yourself into with her. I certainly didn’t.”

“’er I can ‘andle, I think. It is you that I am not so sure of, Vane’s _pet_ that you are.”

Anne laughed. “Got you banged to rights she has.”

Pulling on his coat, Jack got to his feet. “Yes, well, I’ve been thinking. Maybe it’s time I had a crew of my own.”

 

\---

 

 

For the first time in a week Eleanor did not wake in her study, but in her bed. It was strange how different the world seemed with hope in her heart and a few hours of decent sleep. The sounds of the waves and the seabirds which had so tormented her of late, were once again a soothing melody to her ears. As reluctant as she was to let herself believe that all was not lost with Max, she could not help but feel lighter somehow, and stronger. The collapse of their relationship had stripped her of the armour she had worked so carefully to construct, and without it she had be curiously vulnerable. Without Max she was less than herself. As clichéd as it sounded, without Max she was incomplete.

Mr Scott noticed the change in her mood the moment she descended the stairs into the tavern. He narrowed his eyes from where he stood behind the bar and watched for someone to appear behind her that never did.

“What is it that has you smiling like this?” he asked warily.

“Why do I usually smile?” Eleanor asked teasingly.

“For two reasons,” Scott said as he reached for another glass and pushed his cloth inside. “Either you have just made or are about to make a good deal of money, which I know you are not, or this is about...”

“Max,” Eleanor said brightly, ducking her head to hide her smile. “She… I think that there might be a chance for us. Which is why I’m going to go and see my father.”

Mr Scott raised his brows. “I thought you said that he would not listen to what you would have to say?”

“I think it’s about time Father dearest heard a few home truths. Starting with how I couldn’t give a fuck what he thinks about Max and I, and ending with what I’ll let the dogs we buy cargo from do to him if he refuses. If he won’t listen to me, he might listen to the ring of Anne Bonny’s knives.”

 

\---

 

“Where are we going?” Max asked as she hurried after Anne and Jack down the length of the beach. “’e will not be ‘appy if I am not there when ‘e comes looking for me to service one of ‘is men.”

“We’re going to meet with your girlfriend,” Jack purred.

Max stopped. “Eleanor?”

“Unless you have a string of them around the Indies, yes,” Jack continued, pausing for Max to catch up. “Seems Miss Guthrie has use for Anne and that means we go with her. Thanks to Captain Vane’s - shall we say disagreement? -  with Guthrie, we are very much enemy number one on this island. There are dozens of crews just waiting to bring her our heads in the hope she will give them the information they need to turn their small time pirating into an operation to be envious of. And so, my dear, were Anne goes, I go.”

Snorting, Max said, “’iding behind your woman? Smart man. Most would ‘ave too much pride for that.”

“Yes well, seeing as my woman is our dear Anne, I think that is a good idea to keep her close, do you not concur?”

“Perfectly,” Max agreed.

“Good. Now, if you don’t mind, we have an appointment to make.”

The sound of Eleanor’s voice brought them all up short.

“The fuck are they doing here?” Eleanor swore, stepping from the treeline with a scowl on her face and a gun in her hand. “I thought I said you were to come alone. We need to be discreet. Rackham is about as discreet as a fucking multi-coloured fucking parrot.”

Max could not help but smile at Eleanor’s foul language. She had a fire in her that made Max’s heart flutter and her knees go weak. But she would not let herself be so easily swayed as she had been before. Eleanor would have to work for her affections this time.

“He’s with me. He’s always with me. You know that,” Anne said flatly. “Max I could leave to fend for herself if you would prefer.”

Eleanor tried to hide her panic at the idea with an irritated sigh. “Fine, but you need to promise that you will not speak a word of what you see or hear.”

“Of course not,” Max said a little too eagerly, cursing herself for it. What was it about Eleanor that made her act this way?

Jack turned and raised a brow at her in a look which clearly equated his devotion to Anne with hers to Eleanor, saluting her for it as one salutes a comrade in arms. “As the lovely lady said. We will keep our mouths shut. So long as you pay what we agreed.”

Eleanor gave him a sour look. “What do you take me for?”

“A woman whose warehouse is empting by the day,” Jack quipped. At Eleanor’s silence he added. “What? Did you think no one would notice?”

“Where’re we going?” Anne interjected.

Sighing, Eleanor turned and strode into the darkness of the trees, the low-lying leaves running over her shoulders in a caress that Max was trying very hard not to envy. “We’re going to see my father.”

With a start, Max ran to catch her up.

“Your _father_?” Of all the things they could have been doing, she would have believed a hundred of them over this.

“Yes,” Eleanor said, that petulant tone of hers slipping into her voice. “He’s being difficult.”

“When is ‘e not?”

Eleanor stopped, turning to face Max with a sullen frown and her bottom lip trapped between her teeth. “Someone told him about you and me. He… He doesn’t approve, no surprise there. Add to that his recent attempted arrest and a gunshot wound to his shoulder, and he is acting like a petty child instead of helping me fight to keep Nassau from crumbling into the sea.”

She said it all in one breath, and when she was done she closed her mouth tight shut as if afraid more confessions would come tumbling out.

“ _Mon Dieu_!” Max could not believe her ears. Would Richard Guthrie really throw it all away over a blow to his pride? “I thought you were overreacting when you said…” Stopping, Max looked back to where Anne and Jack stood, listening.

“Go ahead,” Eleanor nodded. “I don’t suppose there are many of our secrets that they don’t know by now.”

“I told them nothing!” Max cried, fury burning in her veins at the idea that Eleanor could think that she would betray her, even after everything that had happened. It was Eleanor not her who had showed such treachery.

“That isn’t what I meant,” Eleanor said, all fight gone from her voice. “I’ve hardly been discreet.” She sounded embarrassed now and Max wondered just exactly how much Anne had neglected to tell her. “And the troubles with the business they will find out anyway when we get to my father.”

Stepping between them, Jack said, “That’s all very well, but why exactly are _we_ here?”

With a smile, Anne drew her swords.

“Ah, yes. Same reason as always then. Jolly good. Just as long as there are no misunderstandings.” He paused, the sound of his mind working almost audible as he assessed the situation. “Incidentally, when this is all over, I might have a proposition that you might find interesting.”

Eleanor’s eyes narrowed and she took on the stance of the confident business woman who ruled over Nassau’s pirates with an iron fist. “Pertaining to what?”

Jack took a step behind his sword-wielding lover. “That would be telling. Besides, now that I know how – err – _precarious_ your current position is, I might want to rethink my plans regarding your good self. Depending upon the outcome with your father, you understand.”

Eleanor rolled her eyes. “And what makes you think that I would deal with you, not matter what the potential prize. You’re Vane’s man. You’re off my books for good.”

Jack raised his hand to cover his mouth, whispering conspiratorially. “Let’s just say that I may not be Vane’s man much longer, _comprendre_?”

At that Eleanor’s hostility vanished behind an interest that she could not or would not hide. “You intend to challenge him for captaincy.”

“Not – err – not quite. I don’t have a death wish, after all,” Jack laughed, fear at the possible consequences of crossing Vane plain in his eyes. “No, my plan is one of a much, _much_ subtler nature. Which is where you come in.”

Eyes still narrowed, Eleanor queried, “And _he_ would come out of this – whatever it is you have planned – the loser?”

Knowing that he was winning her over, Jack smiled. “That would be the idea.”

After a moment of consideration, Eleanor nodded and recommenced her expedition through the trees. “You have a deal.”

“You haven’t even heard it yet.”

“Don’t have to. Any venture that’ll fuck Vane in the arse is one I am more than willing to fund. Let me know when and what you want. If it’s in my power to give it, you’ll have it.”

“Err, right, yes.” Jack bowed, more out of shock than anything else, and Anne rolled her eyes at him, brushing past to follow Eleanor. “As you were then.”

 

\---

 

Whatever Max had been expecting to come across at the end of their trek, it had not been a place like this. Of what Max had heard of Eleanor’s father, she knew him to be a proud man who clung too tightly to fineness and appearances to voluntarily hide in a place like this.

Eleanor strode to the door and knocked loud and harsh, starting this with the ferocity with which she intended to deal with her father.

“I’m here to see my father,” she declared when a gentle-looking woman opened the door and regarded Eleanor not with surprise, but with weariness.

“He’s sleeping,” Mrs Barlow said quietly, pulling the door closed behind her.

Eleanor snorted and pushed passed her into the house. “What a shame. Excuse me.”

Mrs Barlow’s eyes widened in fear as Anne followed Eleanor into the house. “Is that-”

Eleanor turned and looked at Anne with a strange endearment. “Yes, quite something isn’t she?” Her expression hardened again when she looked back at Mrs Barlow. “Don’t interrupt us. Flint’s protection only extends so far.”

Without another look back, Eleanor and Anne moved through the house and into the bedroom, leaving Jack and Max alone with Mrs Barlow on the doorstep.

Looking around appraisingly, Jack said, “Well, isn’t this cosy? Are those gardenias I see over there in the flower bed? A little touch of home?”

His voice was light and teasing and Mrs Barlow had absolutely no idea how to take it.

Max shot him a dark look, before turning and smiling at Mrs Barlow. “Eleanor is very grateful to you for sheltering and caring for ‘er father, even if she does not show it.”

But Mrs Barlow did not seem comforted at her words and Max knew immediately that she was not as sweet and proper as she appeared to be. “I’m not doing it for her.”

 

\---

 

Richard Guthrie’s sleep was quite rudely interrupted by the clamour of his daughter bursting into the room he had been confined in.

“Father. How nice to see you,” Eleanor greeted, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps born not of excursion but of that infuriating effect that her father had on her. “I don’t think you’ve met Anne, but I’m sure her reputation precedes her. Anne, this is my father – the cowardly bastard who hides behind finery and sickbeds whilst I make him his money and sort out his mistakes.”

Impressed at Eleanor’s resentment, Anne looked slowly up at Richard from under her hat. “Charmed, I’m sure.”

At the sight of her Richard blanched. “I – What are you doing here? I thought I had made it very clear that I-”

In a flash, Eleanor’s jaw set and her chest swelled, anger overcoming the child’s fear of her father. “And now I’m here to make it very clear exactly where _I_ stand as well.”

On cue Anne drew her swords. “And I’m here to make sure that you listen to her.”

“You – you can’t do this,” Richard choked as he struggled to sit up.

Her confidence returning now that she felt she had the upper hand, Eleanor drew closer. “Oh father, did you really think that you could abandon me on an island swarming with pirates for five whole years and I wouldn’t learn a thing or two? Don’t be so naive. There’s only one reason that our business has survived for this long and that reason is me. Not you, me.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Now, are you ready to give me what I want?”

Richard narrowed his eyes at his daughter, considering her evolution from the scrappy little girl he had brought with him from Boston. Always a disappointment. “Rid yourself of the whore and I’ll consider it. I won’t be a laughing stock on account of your proclivities.”

“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Eleanor scoffed. “You’re lecturing me about whores? Un-fucking-believable.”

Richard’s smile made Eleanor’s blood run cold. “There’s no need to talk about your mother like that.”

 

\---

 

“The walls here are a little thin,” Mrs Barlow said by way of apology, eyeing Max with alarm as she flashed across the room and into the hallway.

“She’s going to kill ‘im!”

Jack opened his mouth to speak, gesturing somewhat randomly with his hands whilst he decided on whether or not it was more or less likely to end in blood if he went after Max. Definitely less. “Excuse us, would you?”

 

\---

 

 

Eleanor’s anger overwhelmed her and she lunged at her father. He had gone too far this time and she would make him pay for it herself.

Anne re-sheathed her swords and did not move. This was a show she would have paid to see and she would not intervene unless her getting paid came into doubt.

“Eleanor!” Max’s voice cut through Eleanor’s rage like nothing else could. She drew back, chastised, and turned to find Max’s eyes full of understanding. She had heard it all. Which meant that Jack had too. It would be all over Nassau come morning.

Richard sneered at the woman who had called his daughter to heel. “This her then, the whore?”

In an instant, Eleanor’s anger returned. “Don’t you dare call her that!”

“Why should he not? It is what I am.” Stepping forward with all of the grace that Eleanor so often felt that she herself lacked, Max smiled pleasantly at the elder Guthrie and held out her hand for him to shake. “It is a pleasure to meet you. You ‘ave a remarkable daughter.”

“She is no daughter of mine.”

Still smiling, Max took back her rebuked hand. “ _Non_? This is a shame. For you, not ‘er.” She raised her chin and put her hand on her hip. “She can do without you. You need ‘er. Without ‘er you are nothing. _Fini_.”

“How do you work that out?”

“Without ‘er you would have no goods to sell. She is offering you an opportunity to get back what you ‘ave lost. You should listen to ‘er.”

The look Richard saw on his daughter’s face made him sick. She was looking at this whore, who dared speak to him like an equal, as if she was the Madonna herself. A queen from heaven come down to earth to be worshiped and obeyed. She looked at this woman the way that he had never looked at her mother. It was pure, undiluted love and its unnaturalness turned his stomach.

“Now, if you will excuse me, I cannot stand to stay in this stink any longer,” Max said, distaste souring her beautiful face.

“Thank you,” Eleanor whispered, just loud enough for Max to hear.

With one last mournful look Eleanor’s father, Max turned to leave. As she passed Eleanor she took her hand and squeezed it tenderly, never breaking her gait as she let their joined hands drop apart with distance, Jack following puppy-like behind her.

Once their respective partners had exited the room, Anne moved up behind Eleanor, her hand resting on her favourite sword – a blade she had named after the first man she had killed. The one whose body Eleanor had helped her to hide.

“Now,” Eleanor began calmly, “can we discuss this sensibly or are you still intent on being… _civilised_?”

 

\---

 

Triumphant, the four unlikely business companions began their long walk back to Nassau town.

“That went well,” Jack quipped lightly. He squeaked when Anne pulled unexpectedly on his arm and dragged him to the side.

“I didn’t get to cut anyone. I want a fuck instead.”

Eleanor blinked at the space where Anne and Jack had been. “Well isn’t she eloquent.”

Max smiled and drifted closer to Eleanor. “I think that is ‘er way of leaving us alone.”

Instead of looking pleased, Eleanor looked only afraid. “I – I can call her back if you-”

“ _Non, ma Chérie_ ,” Max said soothingly. She reached for Eleanor’s hand again and pulled her into a slow, steady, wandering pace. “You will do no such thing.”

Eleanor looked down at Max’s smaller hand cradled in hers. Max wasn’t the one shaking. She wasn’t the one who was near too nervous to speak. “I… I haven’t chased yet.”

She could have died from embarrassment at how stupid she sounded. Why was it that she could run rings around the pirates of Nassau, yet be utterly tongue-tied when it came to this one woman? This one wonderful woman.

“And I am not taking you back yet,” Max said playfully. “But I ‘eard what you said in there once Jack and I ‘ad left.”

Blushing, Eleanor looked away.

“I never thought that I would ‘ear you admit to yourself that you love me,” Max continued, pulling guilt from Eleanor’s aching heart, “never mind someone else, your father at that.”

“I don’t think he’s the only one who knows,” Eleanor murmured. It did not bother that people knew about her and Max. What brought her guilt was that they knew as well how she had betrayed her, and what had happed to Max in turn.

“ _Oui_. As you said, you ‘ave ‘ardly been discreet,” Max agreed. “But we ‘ave never been discreet. My patrons were wont to curse your name when I refused them what they wanted.”

To this at least Eleanor had something to say. “I’ve been thinking. About Noonan. What would you say to me paying off your debt with him?”

What Max thought was evident in the quickness with which she pulled her hand from Eleanor’s, and the look of disbelief she turned on her.

“ _Non_. You will pay no more for me. If that is the way you intend to chase me than we can end this now.”

“No!” Eleanor cried, reaching for Max but falling back when the other woman moved out of her reach. “That’s the last thing I want! Whilst I was giving Noonan coin for you… I wanted to believe that what I saw in your eyes was true, but… Every time you called one of your patrons ‘darling’… Every time I woke up to find you gone… I thought…”

Max’s anger vanished in a moment and for the first time, she understood a little of why Eleanor had done what she had done. “I never, _ever_ thought of you as a patron. I would not ‘ave ‘ad you pay for me at all if it ‘ad not been for Noonan and ‘is threats. Nor ‘ave I ever called one of those detestable men ‘darling’. They are ‘dears’, because they think it exotic when I call them so. You - You alone are my _darling_ \- my lover, my sweet’eart. There is a difference.”

Pinkness once again coloured Eleanor’s cheeks. “Oh. I… I didn’t know.”

A frustrated sigh slipped from Max’s lips. “You are not so good with French as you think, _ma_ _Chérie_.”

“No money,” Eleanor promised, her eyes wide and hopeful. “Not a single coin.”

“ _Bon_.”

When Eleanor held out her hand, Max hesitated, as if deciding what to do next. “I cannot stay with Vane once Anne leaves ‘im. Will you protect me?”

Eleanor’s heart thundered in her chest.  “Above everything.”

 

 

\---

 

The tavern was busier than Max had ever seen it that night. No one was in a hurry to sail back out to sea when there might be one of the Royal Navy’s finest man-o-wars waiting for them, and the prospect of running out of rum seemed only to be bolstering their determinedness to drink Eleanor’s bar dry. An endeavour that Jack and Anne were doing their very best to aid in.

“So, are you taking her back then?” Jack said with a wiggle of his eyebrows. They were sat around Anne’s usual table, drinking the fee that Eleanor had paid to her.

“That remains to be seen,” Max said, smiling despite herself. “She ‘as to prove ‘erself first. Something grand.”

Anne rolled her eyes and reached for her liquor. “And this is why never women. Too much fucking trouble.”

Jack’s smile broadened and he nodded to something behind Max. “I’ll say.”

Frowning, Max turned in her seat just in time to see Eleanor approaching, a sprig of yellow bells hanging coquettishly from her left hand. Her hips swayed as she walked and her gaze burned into Max with an intensity that made her heart skip. When she reached the table she stopped before Max and held out the flowers. “I couldn’t manage roses on such short notice, I’m afraid.”

Max bit her lip and tried for nonchalance. “Are you trying to get my attention for something in particular?”

The whole tavern had stopped to watch and, for once, Max was glad that they had an audience. Eleanor, on the other hand, seemed shaken by the attentions of the whores and pirates.

“I was hoping that you might agree to have dinner with me?” Eleanor rushed out. There was a muted peal of laugher behind her and she tried again. “To – err – do me the honour of having dinner with me.”

The laughter broke out in earnest then, until something Max did not see made everyone behind Eleanor suddenly very interested in the contents of their tankards. If she had to guess, she would bet that Anne had something to do with it, but at that moment all she could think of was that Eleanor had obviously rehearsed that line and yet had still managed to get it wrong in her nervousness. God help her, but this woman was adorable.

“I think,” she began, reaching out for the pretty yellow flowers and taking the hand that Eleanor held out to escort her, “that I could be persuaded to do so, yes.”

Eleanor’s eager smile made Max’s heart break. How could she ever say no to this woman who had so utterly captured her heart? Who had given her flowers in front of the meanest pirates in the West Indies and who did not even seem to care that they had laughed at her, now that Max had said yes.

So she let Eleanor guide her to her feet and lead her – much as she had done to a sullen Eleanor not so very long ago – through the tavern, with everyone watching but not daring to speak a word. It was not, though, to the stairs that Eleanor led her. She was not that forward, not to Max, not anymore. Instead, she led her through her study and out onto the decking beyond. There, waiting for them, was a table set for two – a candle flickering between two covered plates.

Nervous again, Eleanor lifted the cover on the closest plate. “It’s French. Or at least it’s supposed to be…”

“You ‘ave not cooked?!” Max exclaimed in disbelief, peering closer to inspect the mess of a meal. “ _Mon Dieu_ , you ‘ave! Eleanor!”

At the sight of Eleanor’s pout, Max’s laughs quietened and she stepped towards her, curling her fingers around the edges of Eleanor’s jerkin and drawing her closer.

“For you I would do anything,” Eleanor promised.

“And you ‘ave done fine, _ma_ _Chérie_. Just fine. Approaching me like that in front of everyone.” Max’s smile bloomed, remembering. “When I asked you to chase me, I did not think that you would do it like that, in front of all those men.”

Eleanor’s breaths came heavy and quick. Her gaze had fallen to Max’s lips and lingered there. “Was that – Was that wrong?”

Max laughed slowly. “It could not ‘ave been righter.”

“Then will you… What I mean is… Can… Can I kiss you?” Eleanor asked. “Just a kiss. I won’t press you to…”

Swallowing, Max nodded. No one had ever asked permission before. Not once. “ _Oui_. If you do not kiss Max now-”

But before she could finish, Eleanor did just that.

It was everything that the heated kisses of their past had not been. It was sweet and slow, and Eleanor’s hand on her cheek was warm and steadying and it mad Max’s heart melt. She slipped her hand into Eleanor’s hair, loosing it from its confines to fall soft and golden about Eleanor’s shoulders the way it did when they woke side by side in bed. Only then, urged on by the boldness of Max’s touch, did Eleanor dare to deepen the innocent kiss to something altogether more dizzying.

“I love you,” Eleanor breathed, clinging to Max so fiercely that it made Max’s knees weak with the knowledge of just much Eleanor meant what she said. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

“And I believe you,” Max shushed her, unwilling to let her lips leave Eleanor’s even for a moment. She had missed this more than she had been willing to admit. “How could I not when I can feel you trembling so? Oh, Eleanor, swear to me to that you will not ‘urt me again. I do not think I could stand it.”

“I promise. More than anything I promise that. To keep you safe and love you like you deserve. I promise,” Eleanor gasped, all in a rush to say it lest Max pull away.

“Then consider me well and truly caught.”

“You mean it?”

“ _Je t'aime plus que tout au monde. Oui,_ I mean it _._ And I am never, ever letting you go again.”

 


End file.
